Planning for Resilience & Emergency Preparedness

What’s PREP?

PREP provides practical information on getting ready for any potential emergency, from storms and power outages to floods and earthquakes. This information will help you and your neighbors to make it through on your own, since authorities may be overwhelmed and unable to respond promptly after a major disaster.

PREP offers step-by-step tips, with printable checklists and links to more information. PREP has four steps to readiness:

Get Prepared: What to know, what to have on hand, what to do ahead of time

Get Organized: Make a plan with your neighbors for helping each other after the disaster

Get Confident: Keep current and learn new skills by practicing together

PREP focuses on earthquakes and tsunamis. This is because if you’re ready for an earthquake, you’re pretty much ready for anything. The next big movement of the Cascadia Subduction Zone could happen anytime and leave us without utilities, food deliveries, fuel and other services for a week to a month or longer. Fire crews, police, and emergency medical responders will likely be overwhelmed. Travel and communication may be difficult or impossible.

The good news is that earthquakes are the most survivable of major disasters. Coming through a major disaster well will depend on our ability to take care of ourselves and those around us. Our greatest assets will be our own knowledge and attitudes, our household resources, and our connections with neighbors and community.

PREP encourages you to get to know your neighbors and work with them to prepare your neighborhood. Should streets be impassable, due to downed trees or broken pavement, you and your neighbors will be each other's closest source of help. Experience shows that disasters tend to bring out the best in people, and Oregon is full of neighborly people who will pull together to get ready for and respond to these events.

Plus, by working together to gather resources and share skills, we are making our communities stronger and more resilient. And that’s a good thing, disaster or no.

PREP also includes a calendar of preparedness-related events, preparedness news, a sign-up for email updates, and information on how to set your household up for longer-term resilience. Activities like growing and preserving food, bicycling, and insulating your home can be very useful – both for recovering from a natural disaster, and for providing extra security in these uncertain times.

Who’s Behind PREP?

PREP is a collaborative effort between citizen volunteers, community groups, and governmental agencies. Read more about how PREP was developed.